


Strange Embrace

by gloomboyz



Series: Mitjo Songfics [1]
Category: Long Exposure (Webcomic)
Genre: Alcohol, Drug Use, Eating Disorder (Mentioned), M/M, Mitch is really sad wow, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-08-03 02:49:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16317695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloomboyz/pseuds/gloomboyz
Summary: “But you're still so lonely, I can see it in your eyes / And every pretty face is just another strange embrace.”





	Strange Embrace

**Author's Note:**

> au where Freddie doesn’t die —> Mitch never really meets Jonas —> they never get their powers etc etc  
> hey boys i'm back! i don't think i'm gonna write frerard anymore cause idk i'm out of that phase. i still like mcr and all that but i kinda realize that frerard is kinda... creepy? no offense if you ship it tho.  
> anyway here's my new obsession read long exposure it's one of my favorite comics of all time.  
> (title based on the song Strange Embrace by Kitten)

There’s a word for what Mitch is feeling. He knows there is; it’s right on the tip of his tongue. But the thing he’s realized about dropping out of school in grade 11 is the fact that sometimes (more often than not), more complex words - whether they be complex in the spellings or in the meanings or even just how they relate to him - are completely lost to him. Of course, he might just be forgetting the word because he’s drunk out of his mind and can’t even walk straight, let alone think straight, but somewhere, some way, he knows it’s more than that. The words are escaping him faster than ever and he doesn’t know whether to get mad about that or to cry. It’s his own damn fault, anyway; there’s no one to get mad at but himself.

The fifth bottle of beer is always the best, as Freddie always says. As Mitch downs the rest of his fifth, his head starts to spin in a way that it wasn’t just a few moments ago. Somewhere, someone is saying something to him - and with the way they’re relentlessly tugging on his arm, he’s going to bet money that it’s Scratch - but the sound is murky and far away, like he’s under water, floating endlessly in a place where he shouldn’t be. “Whassa madder,” he manages to mumble out, shuffling around so the tugging doesn’t make him feel as sick as it does. He’s not able to make out a full sentence, but he hears the words “where” and “bong” coming from Presumably Scratch’s mouth, and he flings his arm in the vague, general direction of where he last remembers Freddie’s bong to be. It’s entirely possible that he’s completely wrong, but Scratch is already scampering off to Freddie’s room, and Mitch doesn’t have the conscious power to stop her. Soon after, he feels an arm sling around him - he’s not sure if it’s Javier’s or Freddie’s or one of Freddie’s other crackhead friends’ - and the world is spinning, before fading into a dark, sleepy black.

The weeks continue on in a similar manner. Wake up, go to work at Mitch’s shitty convenience store job, go home, and drink and smoke until he passes out. Purging usually fits somewhere into the schedule, but that more depends on whether or not Freddie is home or not. Mitch can’t really say he’s all that happy with it, but hell, it’s a schedule if he’s ever seen one, and that alone is enough to convince him that it’s enough. Not great, but enough. Him and Freddie are still alive, and, Mitch supposes, that’s plenty in his book.

Mitch inhales, and subsequently exhales the cigarette smoke in a smooth, rhythmic pattern, letting the nicotine burn his lungs for as long as humanly possible before he releases the smoke once more. Each night, it feels like, that he’s not drunk or high, there’s a new boy in his bed. Really, he’s still not comfortable with the whole “him being gay” thing. But he can’t deny that sucking dick feels _really_ good.

The newest fling lies silently snoring on his ratty mattress, and from his perch on the window, Mitch can see the slow fall and rise of his tanned, freckled chest. He’s lithe, almost as skinny as Mitch, with sunny blonde curls that fall gently over his eyes, moving with the rest of him as he shuffles around. He’s cute enough, but looking at him, Mitch doesn’t feel anything more than a vague feeling of attraction, and it’s mostly just because the kid had a really nice dick. After taking a final drag, Mitch stubs his cigarette out and picks his work shirt up from the floor, tossing it over his head lazily. For courtesy's sake, he shuts his bedroom door before leaving for work.

The cool air of October whips around him, and Mitch regrets not bringing a jacket. But the pack of cigarettes digging into his thigh reminds him that he doesn’t have to be cold on his way to work, and even from the first drag he takes from his newly lit cigarette, he’s almost instantly warmed up. From the inside, at least. He knows it’s a bad habit, and when his mom was around, she would remind him of that; but then five minutes later he would see her on the front stoop chain smoking an entire pack, and he couldn’t really find it in himself to care enough to stop. Instead, he would just join her. The same remains true for the present, even if his mom isn’t around to join him.

Freddie was supposed to drive him to work today, but when Mitch had walked into his room, he’d been passed out with half a burrito in one hand and the bong that Probably Scratch (Mitch still wasn’t sure if it had been her; most of his memories from that night we’re still incredibly foggy) had been searching so adamantly for a week or so prior. Mitch hadn’t even remembered going out to get food last night, but then again, he doesn’t really remember how he ended up in bed with that kid anyway, so he simply shuts Freddie’s door quietly and regrets it later. Cigarettes can only warm him up so much.

The convenience store is dead, as is expected on a Monday afternoon. The kids who usually loiter around the shop are all in school, and all the depressed parents are still holed up in their 9 to 5 death sentences, not yet there for their afternoon coffee addictions. The only current patrons seem to be a meth addict that’s staring vacantly at the slushie machine (he looks vaguely familiar, and Mitch can’t tell if he knows him because he’s been here before or if he’s one of Freddie’s friends), and a young mom with a crying baby that leaves as soon as she gets there, only buying a pack of Marlboro Reds. The rest of the day is relatively dead, until 2:37 pm on the dot. The only reason Mitch knows this is because he’s spent the past five minutes before that staring at the cracked screen of his phone, vaguely aware of the idea that staring at the clock won’t make it go any faster, but not caring enough to stop.

The bell above the door chimes, creating a sort of song as it mingles with raucous laughter. Two figures walk into the store, completely disregarding Mitch’s presence in favor of chatting idly with each other, searching the aisles for various snacks. Mitch watches them, with a lack of better things to do. They spend a grand total of five minutes or so browsing the oh-so-interesting aisles, before one of them comes up, an armful of various chip bags in tow. He dumps them unceremoniously onto the counter, looking - embarrassed, almost? - as he does it. With an internal sigh, Mitch reaches forward, scanning the first bag lazily. About halfway into the pile, though, he glances up for the first time since they’ve come in, and almost freezes. Almost.

There’s nowhere in the company policy that says employees can’t develop crushes on customers, so Mitch feels little to no shame when he feels his cheeks heat up briefly. There’s something th oddly beautiful about this kid, in a way Mitch never considered. Or, maybe, he never had the opportunity to consider it. In a weird way, he reminds Mitch of the kid who’s still probably passed out on his bed, but Mitch is way more enraptured with this boy than he’s ever been with anyone else- and that’s saying something. The boy in front of him is rounder than the kid he’d slept with; softer. His hair is dark and the bags under his eyes are darker, but he smiles at Mitch. It’s somewhere between fake polite and nervous, but it still lights up his face beautifully. Mitch can’t seem to catch his breath, and for once, he knows it’s not from the copious amounts of ash coating his lungs. He stuffs the last bag of chips into a bag while the kid swipes his card through the machine, and Mitch glances from his hands, to the kid’s freckled ones, back to his own. The kid’s hands are so _small_ , at least compared to Mitch’s. In fact, Mitch seems to tower over him. He hands the boy his bags, and for the briefest of moments, the boy flashes him a smile; a _real_ smile. He walks out the door with the girl he had come in with, the bell jingling once again with their laughter.

And Mitch doesn’t do anything about it.

Blank weeks go by, filled with alcohol and weed and nameless faces that Mitch either purposely or unintentionally forgets. Freddie’s getting thinner, and for a few weeks there, Mitch almost thinks his brother is partaking in the same kind of self harm that he does. But he shakes the thought away quickly; Freddie’s been surviving off of nothing but Pop Tarts and Ramen for a while now. He might be stupid, but he’s not as stupid as Mitch.

His job seems to slow before it comes to a complete, grinding halt. He walks in on a chilly October morning and suddenly, he’s fired, not comprehending the meaning behind that until he wanders his way home. Flopping himself onto the ratty old couch in the middle of his and Freddie’s trailer, the realization suddenly hits him that he doesn’t have a job. Freddie’s job won’t be enough to support both of them, and even if their mom got out of prison any time soon, she probably wouldn’t be very lucky in finding a job, especially straight out of prison. Drug charges don’t look good on anyone’s records.

Mitch fiddles with his hands, if only for a lack of better things to do. Never-healing bruises paint his knuckles in a way that’s oddly artistic, and his fingers are rough and calloused as he rubs them up against his pale wrist. Suddenly, like he’s on autopilot, he starts scratching at his wrist and doesn’t stop until he’s bleeding. He needs a smoke.

The air is cold and biting, but Mitch barely feels it at all, especially when he lights up. The various noises of the trailer park are no more comforting than they were when his family moved here however the fuck many years ago. He almost feels like he’s going to fall asleep, cigarette dangling from his chapped lips, but the sound of scraping on the pavement that’s unfamiliar and strange to the trailer park neighborhood wakes him from his daze. A few feet from his house, out on the main road that leads into the trailer park, two kids try to one up each other doing skateboard tricks. And, if Mitch squints a little, he recognizes them as the kids who had come into the convenience store a few weeks prior. They’re not from the trailer park, if there clothes are anything to go by, but there still here. Mitch was starting to think that the pretty boy had just been a figment of his imagination. But no, he’s right there, his freckled face warm and smiling as he laughs at his companion while she attempts to perform some sort of kick flip, only to land roughly on the ground. His laugh, like it had all those weeks, still sounds like music to Mitch’s fucking ears. He billows out a cloud of smoke, and continues watching them, no matter how creepy it kind of seems.

After a while, the boy notices Mitch staring. Instead of telling Mitch off, of just glaring at him weirdly, like Mitch expected him to, he smiles and gives Mitch a little wave. His green eyes look different in the natural light of the sun, brighter. The light seems to bounce off of his eyes in a way that looks like it’s coming from inside of him.

Suddenly, Freddie is barging out of the trailer, tripping on the stoop as he shuffles up next to Mitch, stealing the cigarette straight out of his mouth and taking a long, concentrated drag. He bumps into Mitch, still distractedly watching the boy and his friend do stupid, half-assed skateboard tricks. “C’mon,” Freddie says around the cigarette, “I wanna go see mom, but I’m way too hungover to drive. Let’s go,” he slings an arm around Mitch’s shoulder, pulling him away from the boy and out of his reverie.

And finally, Mitch realizes the word he’s been looking for this whole time. Mitch feels lonely.


End file.
